Japan's defense minister resigned Tuesday after suggesting the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were inevitable, a remark that stirred furious criticism in a nation where many consider the attacks an unjustified slaughter of civilians.

Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, a native of Nagasaki, said he did not mean to condone the 1945 bombings, which Washington has argued were necessary to end World War II without a potentially bloody land invasion.

"I just meant that there was nothing we could do about it," he said after tendering his resignation to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose administration has seen its popularity plunge ahead of parliamentary elections this month. "I don't think people understood what I meant."

He hit a very sore nerve, however.

Kyuma's comments generated angry criticism from survivors of the bombings, opposition lawmakers and fellow Cabinet members. The mayor of Nagasaki was among the most vocal critics, telling Kyuma to stay away from a ceremony marking the bombing anniversary next month and saying the comment "tramples on the feelings of A-bomb victims."

In a speech Saturday, Kyuma said the atomic bombings caused great suffering. But he added that Japan would have otherwise kept fighting and ended up losing a greater part of its northern territory to the Soviet Union, which invaded Manchuria on the day Nagasaki was bombed.

"I understand that the bombings ended the war, and I think that it couldn't be helped," he said.

Though Kyuma's statement was similar to the interpretation in the United States that the bombings hastened the war's end and thus saved lives, it contradicted the generally held Japanese stance that the use of nuclear weapons is never acceptable.

A ban on possession of such weapons is a hallowed tenet of Japan's postwar pacifist policies. Kyuma's remarks were slammed as both a tacit acceptance of the U.S. decision in 1945 and of the use of nuclear weapons in general.

"Abe should have said this is outrageous," said Tomoaki Iwai, a political scientist at Nihon University. "The atomic bombings are something that Japanese people can never forgive."

Kyuma was succeeded by National Security Adviser Yuriko Koike, the first woman to assume the defense portfolio in Japan.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Kyuma's resignation was an internal matter for Japan. But he said the United States looked forward to working with Japan's first female defense minister.

Since Abe assumed office last September, controversies over World War II have become front-and-center issues.

Abe himself was the focus of international ire for denying that Japan forced "comfort women" to work at front-line brothels during the war, despite historical evidence to the contrary. And a large faction within Abe's party is rallying for a re-evaluation of the Rape of Nanking, in which the Chinese claim as many as 300,000 people were slaughtered.

The atomic bombings are an even more delicate matter.

On Aug. 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped a bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" on Hiroshima, killing at least 140,000 people in the world's first atomic bomb attack. Three days later, the U.S. dropped another atomic bomb, "Fat Man," on Nagasaki, where about 74,000 are estimated to have been killed.

Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, 1945.

Abe has not made his own position on the bombings public, saying instead that Kyuma "caused misunderstandings" with his remarks.

Koike, Kyuma's successor, also carefully avoided the topic in her first meeting with reporters.

"Japan wants to continue to be a leader toward nuclear abolishment," she said.

Kyuma was among the most outspoken of Abe's Cabinet ministers.

In January, he raised eyebrows in Washington by calling the U.S. decision to invade Iraq a "mistake" because it was based on the false premise that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Japan and the U.S. are close military allies, and Japan hosts some 50,000 American troops under a security treaty.

A man who told the truth had to resign? I don't understand why these people can be so sensitive about the whole atomic bomb issue, when they ignore other claims such as Japanese brutality in wartime occupied places. I mean, I don't think anyone should ever be a victim of that atomic bomb things, but it was an inevitable, in my opinion.

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Last edited by SteelersMongol; 07-03-2007 at 11:10 PM.
Reason: grammar

What about the Japanese atrocities during WWII or the casualty rate we would have sustained if we attempted to take the main island of Japan after taking Europe back from Nazi Germany. That goes in one ear and out the other with some of these people. It's not worth it. I guess when it's your own boys taking those casualties it's another story.

If dropping those two bombs means saving millions of American/Allied lives against an enemy who was not going to surrender at any cost, you damn well better believe I agree with the droppings.

Let's hear Japan comment on Bataan, Hsuchow, Manila Massacre, Sook Ching Massacre, Nanking Massacre and Unit 731. Yeah, we don't want to get into that do we? We will just push those incidents under the carpet and pretend they never occured.

What about the Japanese atrocities during WWII or the casualty rate we would have sustained if we attempted to take the main island of Japan after taking Europe back from Nazi Germany. That goes in one ear and out the other with some of these people. It's not worth it. I guess when it's your own boys taking those casualties it's another story.

If dropping those two bombs means saving millions of American/Allied lives against an enemy who was not going to surrender at any cost, you damn well better believe I agree with the droppings.

Let's hear Japan comment on Bataan, Hsuchow, Manila Massacre, Sook Ching Massacre, Nanking Massacre and Unit 731. Yeah, we don't want to get into that do we? We will just push those incidents under the carpet and pretend they never occured.

WHich is why I am always happy for a pacifist Japan. Cause if they ever step away from that ideal... That part of the world will explode... The hatred there rivals that of Israel/Arab. The only problem is... they have much bigger standing armies, much more land to bomb, and a much larger population.

I guess that's the price you pay when your war crimes equal that of the Nazi's at that time in history.

That's fine by me if they have that attitude. If they want their women to jump off cliffs with babies grasped in arms or blow themselves up with grenades, that's fine by me. Just don't expect my army to lose millions while trying to bring you down.

Quote:

"The atomic bombings are something that Japanese people can never forgive."

IMO, it's over and done with. If the people over there still hold a grudge, that's their problem. But there are two sides to every story and names such as Bataan, Hsuchow, Manila Massacre, Sook Ching Massacre, Nanking Massacre and Unit 731 are rarely mentioned when it comes to the big bad USA dropping it's two bombs to end a very long war.

i guess if japan would have invented the A bomb, they wouldn't have used it on us....

__________________“If tyranny and oppression come to this land it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.” ― James Madison

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." -Thomas Jefferson
"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers." - Thomas Jefferson

I guess that's the price you pay when your war crimes equal that of the Nazi's at that time in history.

One big difference - Germans by and large have owned up to and denounced their country's role in WWII. Complete opposite of what the Japanese have done - playing revisionist history with their school textbooks regarding their role in that war being just one example.

One big difference - Germans by and large have owned up to and denounced their country's role in WWII. Complete opposite of what the Japanese have done - playing revisionist history with their school textbooks regarding their role in that war being just one example.